push and pull like a magnet do
by thatclichedwriter
Summary: Ginny Weasley is a Gryffindor Quidditch player and a proud leader of DA. She started out as a damsel and a victim, but she never stayed that way. This is her one-witch journey on the path to recovery, victory, and getting the girl.
1. year one: hogwarts express

When Ginny first boards the Hogwarts Express at 11 years old, in secondhand robes and mind full of hope, she opens the first compartment she sees and finds another girl already sitting there. Ginny's brothers have already found their own friends, leaving her, the annoying baby sister all alone.

Ginny is usually never nervous, or at least tries to act that way. She is a Weasley and she shares genes and parents with Fred and George. But she thinks of what Bill has told her about the Hogwarts Express-how everyone always becomes the closest friends with whoever they sat with on the train to Hogwarts-and this dries her throat.

Ginny has never had a friend before, who voluntarily chose to become close to her. She has been surrounded her whole life by her Weasley brood of brothers and she has been neighbours with Loony Luna, but she would never think of them as friends. Tom, perhaps, was the closest thing she had, but he was living inside the diary that her mum had bought for her. He couldn't sit next to her on the train, or to be sorted into the same house, or work together during class, like she desperately wants.

The other girl-a brunette, with an unmarked tie so she must be a first year like her-is staring at her, having noticed the open door and the scruffy girl by now.

"Um, hi." Ginny manages to squeak out, her palm sweating with nervousness. She wants to make a good first-impression, wants to find the thing called friendship like all her other brothers have, but in front of the other girl, she feels very self-conscious.

The other girl doesn't say anything, only raising her eyebrow lazily as if she is unimpressed. She scans her from head to toe with her very blue eyes, and Ginny is painfully aware of the worn robes that her mother took in and mended and used to belong to Fred or George.

"My name is Ginny," she blurts out to avoid the awkward silence. "I'm in first year. Do you mind if I sit here with you?"

The girl is silent for a moment, casting unimpressed looks on her ratty trunk, but rolling her eyes, she replies, "If you must."

Ginny grins and bounds in the compartment with her trunk, the door sliding close behind her. She heaves the trunk up on the luggage rack by herself, although it takes her a few tries to brace herself and to maneuver it up. When she turns around and throws herself on her seat, the other girl has resumed her previous activity of staring out the window, her posture the meaning of dignified.

Ginny looks out the window but doesn't see her parents in the crowded platform. She glimpses a brief flash of red hair and thinks that could be it, but it is heading away from the platform back to the archway that leads to the muggle side of the station. She sneaks glances at the other girl, and decides to make conversation.

"My name's Ginny." She says. "Ginny Weasley."

"I know." The other girl says. "You told me."

Ginny is beginning to be annoyed. Can't this girl take a hint? Or is she being purposely rude?

"What's your name?" She decides to just ask straight out.

"Astoria Greengrass." The other girl-Astoria-says, her chin jutting out slightly.

"Are you excited to go to Hogwarts? What house do you think you'll be in? I want to be a Gryffindor like the rest of my family." Ginny says, smiling. Her brothers call her a motormouth sometimes, saying that she talks too much, but Astoria doesn't seem like the type that talks very much. Still, Ginny is good at speaking, and she will try to get to know Astoria. Perhaps they could be friends by the end of the journey then.

Astoria is looking at Ginny with a clinical eye, like she is just studying something not particularly interesting. "Don't you have something else you could be doing? Like reading or something instead of making stupid conversations?"

Ouch.

Ginny opens her mouth to retort scathingly-the good thing about growing up with six brothers was that there was no shortage of colourful words she could use-but then the door opens again and another girl, older than her by the looks of it and Slytherin, judging from the tie, is standing on the other side of it.

"Astoria." The girl says. She is blonde with blue eyes and tall, but she looks very much like the girl sitting across from Ginny. "What are you doing here all alone? Come on, you can join us in our compartment-I've even told Malfoy to behave himself."

Astoria stands up and follows her sister out without any glance back to Ginny, and the compartment door closes silently behind them. Ginny, with her wounded pride as her first attempt at friendship got rejected harshly, just quietly pulls her diary out with a scowl and begins to talk to the one person who has been there for her.

It doesn't matter anymore that Tom isn't real, that he isn't sitting beside Ginny right now. The only thing Ginny wants right now is the companionship of a friend, someone she could talk to and share her hopes and fears with and who isn't one of her brothers who'd just make fun of her. Just because Tom doesn't have a body doesn't mean he's any less real, and right now, the quietness of the compartment and Tom's unquestioning sympathy is beginning to heal the wound she received from the earlier rejection and making her feel better.

Ginny is beginning to think that the rumour of the Hogwarts Express that Bill told her won't ever come true for her.

Then the door opens again and a different blonde this time-Loony Luna with her ridiculous spectroscopes saunters in and throws herself down-in a much more delicate way than Ginny did-without so much as a hello. An eager looking boy with mousy brown hair and a camera in his hands trots in after her and begins talking a mile a minute, and Ginny is denied even this simple comfort of talking to Tom in privacy now.

Ginny looks around the compartment, a crazy blonde in front of her, reading a magazine upside down and a boy bounding around like he'd had too much sugar, taking a photo of everything, even attempting to open her diary until she'd threatened him, and agrees with her previous opinion that the Hogwarts Express theory is absolute bull.

Later, at the sorting ceremony, Ginny watches "Greengrass, Astoria" be sorted off to Slytherin amidst a round of polite applause, and thinks that there is no way the two of them would ever have been friends. When she is sorted to Gryffindor, the hat barely taking a moment to decide because she is a Weasley, and it takes a special kind of courage to grow up as an only girl in a house with Fred and George, the mousy haired boy with a camera, a "Creevy, Colin", is waving at her enthusiastically with an empty seat next to him. Fred and George accidentally drop a water balloon full of red and gold slime on their heads while she's eating pudding, Percy is lecturing them in an annoyed sort of voice and Ron and her crush; the famous Harry Potter, is nowhere to be seen.

She doesn't know why she glances over at Astoria in that exact moment, but she makes eye contact with her, who is surrounded by Slytherins-her sister on one side, Draco Malfoy talking to a pug-faced girl on the other, and still she can't shake that feeling of anger at the brunette from her mind, who had been the first person Ginny had wanted to be friends with.

Ginny looks away.


	2. year two: hospital wing

When Ginny is 12, she runs into Astoria at the Hospital Wing.

Ginny has a bruised lip and a bloody tooth, her feet won't stop dancing, but she is grinning. The other boy who had insulted her and cast the tarantallegra curse on her has bats coming out of his nose and attacking him and he can't walk straight, crouching over in pain instead.

When the Matron; Madam Pomfrey comes out of her office to see her smiling triumphantly with a broken face, she sighs deeply. "Not you again, Miss Weasley."

Ginny can't help but grinning wider. "Hey, Madam Pomfrey."

The Matron tuts, waving her wand to diagnose Ginny's injuries. "Can't you just stay out of trouble for one week, Miss Weasley?"

"You should see the other guy." Ginny smiles victoriously. She's been getting into fights and duels and trouble all year, and she revels in it. At night, she keeps hearing Tom's voice in her head, sees her hands doing things she can't stop them from doing, and that makes her wake up in terror every dawn.

Her entire school has turned into a place of nightmare for her and although most of it was her own bloody fault for being stupid, she can't help but feel resented about the fact that none of the staff or her fellow students noticed something was wrong about her-that nobody noticed that she was living the entire last year in terror. Even now, when Dumbledore and McGonagall and Ron and Harry and probably Hermione know her story, know what happened, they can't understand that she's not perfectly fine, that she isn't perfectly happy.

Most of the time, she's alright with that. She wants someone to see her, to understand, to comfort her, but that feels too much like being weak. It was her weakness that led her to Tom Riddle, that led her to pour her soul out to her. It was her weakness that allowed the attacks on the students to continue. Ginny can't even look Harry Potter in the eye, because whenever she does, the cold and emptiness of waking up in that Chamber comes back to her.

Ginny wants someone to understand, but Ginny is twelve and she's having trouble trusting people these days. The only person she'd counted as a friend had used her and discarded her, painfully violated her psyche, searching through her memories and throwing them out. Tom Riddle had drained her of everything that made her Ginny Weasley, slipped in parts that Ginny can't tell if it is her or not, then left her to die on that cold floor. He lied to her, manipulated her and pretended to be her friend, and Ginny stupidly fell for it.

The only reactions of people that she can trust are the ones she induces herself, and Ginny thinks that might be a big part of the reason she keeps getting in fights.

That sort of honesty is refreshing these days, when everyone who knows are inclined to walk on eggshells around her and those who don't are too occupied with their own business and prefers to ignore the strange Weasley girl. Sometimes she feels like she's drowning-in her memories, in her terror, in the crowds of people who don't care-and the fighting gives back the feeling of being alive to her.

"Well, nothing's terribly broken so you can wait until I give Miss Greengrass here her headache drought." Madam Pomfrey says briskly. Madam Pomfrey probably doesn't approve of Ginny fighting and giving her more messes that she had to heal. She knows that none of her other teachers do either. Ginny particularly doesn't care.

That's fine with her-a bloody tooth and a swollen lip was nothing growing up, compared to the leg she broke when Fred pushed her out of a tree when she was eight. It's nothing compared to what she went through under Tom's control, when she got flung back by the basilisk when Ginny attempted to fight Tom's actions, or when she scrubbed her hands raw trying to get rid of the chicken blood staining her hands after she broke all their necks.

Ginny needs to punish someone for her past. She needs to blame someone for what happened, and the Slytherins who come and insult her, insult her family, insult her House-are the convenient targets. After all, it was the Heir of Slytherin who had been the one to hurt her.

So Ginny punches and kicks and insults those Slytherins, and picks fights and wins and loses them equally. She curses and hexes them, uses the bat-bogey hex that Colin had found for her in the Hogwarts Library, and hurts them more than they ever manage to hurt her-an experience gained from evading the twins' pranks for years-and it feels good. With every punch, hex or a nasty insult, Ginny feels like she's paying back the Slytherins for the brutal violation she received from the Heir last year. It feels like she's fighting back in this one-woman war of hers.

Ginny tries to wait patiently as Madam Pomfrey disappears back into the potions supply room, but her dancing legs doesn't agree with her idea and keeps on tapping their way on the hard Hospital Wing floor.

"Can you keep quiet?" Astoria asks Ginny. "That incessant tapping is making my headache worse."

"I got hit with a curse." Ginny replies flippantly. A year ago, even a few months ago, the other girl would have made her angry or pissed or whatever, but right now, Ginny doesn't even care. She's achieved a state of numbness for now, the type she gets after she's worked out some frustrations against people picking a fight with her, after all the anger and pain she's carrying out has been vented against the opponent of the week. "I don't exactly have a choice in whether I dance or not."

Ginny has changed-she's become more vindictive, more manipulative, more Slytherin in her own way-and this scares her. And this too, she is content to lay the blame on the Slytherins.

Ginny is twelve and she is hurt and angry at the world. She needs someone to suffer for what happened last year, and if fighting with Slytherins is going to make her feel better, that's what she's going to do. Nobody has said that Ginny Weasley wasn't stubborn.

Ginny moves closer to her to annoy her. After all, she is a Slytherin and Ginny doesn't particularly care for Slytherins this year. Her tapping shoes seems to sound louder to Astoria when they are closer, and Ginny feels a sense of triumph when Astoria looks up with a glare.

"I said, stop that." Astoria, the Queen Bee of Slytherin as she'd begun to be called among the first and second years, demanded.

Ginny smirked. "And I said that I can't."

This seems to infuriate Astoria, who pulls her wand out and glares at her. Ginny goes to take one step forward, not wanting to back down from another potential fight, when her feet get tangled up, apparently having forgotten about the dancing curse still in effect.

Ginny falls forward, hands swinging to keep her balance ineffective, and crashes into Astoria, both of them tumbling to the floor.

It takes them a while to get untangled, mostly due to Ginny's legs that won't stop dancing. eventually, Astoria gets fed up enough to point her wand at her legs and finite incantatem them back to normal.

Ginny notices that Astoria's hair smells like strawberries. That is very different from what she expects Slytherins to smell like-which is snake, musk and the smell of potions ingredients. The Chamber of Secrets smelled like death, but Astoria's hair smells like life.

Ginny puts weight on her leg to stand, then slumps back down with a grimace. She thinks she must have twisted her ankle, because it hurts when she puts weight on it. It's not the pain that cripples her, it's just the momentary surprise.

But before Ginny tries to stand back up again, something grabs on her forearm and yanks her upward. Ginny hurriedly grabs Astoria's shoulder before she can be flung down again from the momentum, then lets go when she feels herself stabilize.

"Um, thanks." Ginny mutters, glancing at her.

Astoria just shrugs. "The tapping was bothering me."

That is when Madam Pomfrey appears, and Ginny is left to watch Astoria walk away from her again to collect her headache potion. After Astoria leaves, Madam Pomfrey bustles over and begins jabbing her wand at her face, the ache in the mouth and lips and ankle slowly disappearing. But that isn't what Ginny cares about.

The last year, Ginny has grown, even if it wasn't by choice. She has seen things that no child should see, has felt pain and became stronger for it. All year, Ginny has felt herself like she was surrounded by children, with her roommates giggling about boys and makeup, in conversations that she does not know how to join in. There is Luna and there is Colin, who are the two people in the school who talks to her regularly, since even her brothers are too occupied with girlfriends and pranks and mass murderers out for their best friends.

When Ginny talked to Astoria, she felt alive again even though she wasn't fighting. Astoria canceled the dancing curse on Ginny and helped her up, because the tapping was bothering her, and Ginny doesn't see a reason to doubt this.

They are not friends-barely an acquaintance to each other. The only interactions they've had are few and varied and yet Astoria has returned a part of Ginny that was lost, although Ginny hadn't known it. Ginny's numbness that she feels after a fight with all her emotions drained has disappeared, and yet she isn't twitching with anger and hurt-for now, at the very least.

Ginny and Astoria are not friends, and yet Ginny can't find a reason to distrust her. Perhaps it is because Astoria has always been straightforward with her-on the train, she was rude, curt and unfriendly, and she has done nothing to hide it. Today, she restored her feet back to normal and has helped her up, because the tapping was making her headache worse.

That sort of honesty was refreshing to her nowadays.


	3. year three: yule ball

Ginny is 13 and she is a teenager now.

She still feels so much older for her age, although the nightmares have slowly decreased to one or two nights a week compared to every night, and the anger and hurt she has felt at the world have disappeared to give way to the anger that she feels at herself instead.

Still, Ginny is one year older now and there is more that she understands compared to a year ago. There is also more that she is still figuring out for herself, about who she is and whether a part of her is her, or still a remnant left of Tom Riddle.

Ginny's darker, vindictive sides of herself still haven't disappeared and she thinks that it is now a part of her.

There is still a lot that Ginny doesn't know about herself.

But she is in the Great Hall, all freshly decorated, in a dress sent from home and in the arms of a sweet, shy Gryffindor boy and somehow that does not matter tonight. Compared to other girls like Cho Chang, Parvati Patil or even Hermione Granger; all beautified and in the arms of a champion; Ginny is still small and plain in her secondhand dress and makeup that she struggled to put on. Still, the parts of her feel like she is a princess in one of the fairy tales that her mum used to read for her.

Ginny used to dream about things like this as a child. She used to read the Harry Potter books, where he goes on adventures and rescues damsels and lives happily ever after-and Ginny used to dream of being the witch who helps Harry Potter defeat villains like You-Know-Who and lives in a castle with him and falls in love. Ginny has never wanted to be a damsel in distress, but a powerful witch who defeats villains together and falls in love with the heroic wizard.

The arms she is dancing in does not belong to Harry Potter, and the only adventure she has been in has been in the role of a damsel rather than a hero, but Ginny has long learned that some dreams don't come true.

This does not matter.

When the song ends and the loud music of the Weird Sisters begin to play, Ginny suggests taking a break. Neville looks all too relieved, and is quick to excuse himself to the loo, while Ginny heads over to where the punch is served.

Astoria is standing by the punch table.

"Nice dress." Ginny hears, when she approaches close enough. Ginny is startled, glancing behind her to see if she was talking to someone else.

There is no one there.

"I-thanks." Ginny stammers out, startled. Her dress is old, something that used to belong to one of her cousins. Her mum has tried to fix it up and make it look neat, and she has replaced the ribbon on it to a creamy white colour, but it is nothing special compared to the flashy dress of Lavender, or even the beautiful silver-sheened dress that Astoria is wearing.

Nobody has complimented her on her attire this evening and Ginny does not blame them.

"The pink and green brings out your eyes." Astoria says, shrugging. "It's a little old fashioned, but the vintage look is supposed to come back in style next summer."

Ginny is stunned, but can't help smiling. "Thanks. You look really nice, too."

Ginny feels lame for only being able to think of 'really nice' to describe Astoria, but the truth is that if she tried to describe her, Ginny would talk too much again. Astoria looks like a Princess.

Astoria smirks. "Thanks. Mother made the dress when she heard that a boy invited me to the ball."

Ginny gapes. "Your mum made the dress? That's amazing!"

Astoria shrugs. "She's a designer. This is like child's play to her." Astoria sounds very proud when she says it, and Ginny can't help but admire it. They are not friends, but after the incident in the hospital wing, they have become more civil towards each other, nodding when they see each other in the hallways. This year, they have even been partners in Charms class several times.

Ginny notices that Astoria's eyes light up when she is genuinely happy.

"Where's your date?" Astoria asks.

Ginny has forgotten about Neville. She glances around the Great Hall, but she cannot see him yet. He must be still in the loo, or he has taken a detour on his way here.

"He went to get some air." She says. She thinks it sounds better than saying that he's at the loo. "What about you? Where's your date?"

Astoria looks nonchalant. "I left him somewhere. He kept stepping on my toes."

Ginny snickers.

She grabs two cups of punches from the table and holds one out to Astoria.

"Punch?" she asks. When Astoria gives her a small smile and takes it, it feels like a victory to her.

The conversation with Astoria doesn't last long. Soon after, the music changes back to a slow dance and a pretty Beauxbatons boy saunters over to say hello and asks Astoria to dance.

Astoria doesn't refuse.

Neville finds Ginny later, standing by herself and holding a half-full cup of punch that she is slowly sipping at. "Sorry," Neville says, scratching his head. "Dean and Seamus wanted me to take some pictures for them. Dean brought a camera."

Ginny smiles at him. "It's alright." she says.

Neville shuffles on his feet. "Um, would you like to keep dancing, or…?"

Ginny glances out at the dancing floor, and sees Astoria in the arms of the Beauxbatons boy from earlier, her silver dress spinning out around her.

"Let's go for a walk." Ginny suggests.

That night, Ginny kisses a boy goodnight for the first time, who is not Harry Potter and has brown eyes instead of blue. They agree on being just friends afterwards. Ginny slips into the Gryffindor common room and sees Colin asleep by the fireplace with his books spread out in front of him, and wakes him up to send him back to his bed upstairs.

Ginny takes off her shoes when she's surrounded by the curtains on her four-poster bed, and folds her vintage dress up very neatly, and stores them in her trunk underneath all of her books.

When Ginny falls asleep, her dreams are of the brightly decorated hall and silver and pink and green dresses and dancing, and she doesn't have a nightmare that night.


	4. year four: umbridge

Ginny is 14 when she goes on her first date.

The castle is suffocating this year-with Umbridge sauntering around making the place miserable, with eyes and ears everywhere and Harry's dark mood covering the entire Gryffindor tower when he's sulking.

Her hand also constantly hurts, from the ugly words she's had to carve in it all of last week, but she doesn't pay it too much thought to that. This is nothing, compared to everything else.

Everyone's hands are hurting.

For the first time, she is not alone in her pain, in her anger. Everyone else is hurting and angry too, and she thinks there is some kind of comfort in that.

She has been dating Michael Corner, a Ravenclaw boy since the end of last year, but this is her first time actually going on a proper date with him. They're going to Hogsmeade, but she doesn't know what to expect.

Ginny dresses casually-a colourful jumper that her mum knit her over a pair of clean slacks-and smiles at Michael. Michael smiles back at her, and her stomach flip-flops a little at the dimple on one side of his face.

"Ready to go?" He says, smile getting wider.

"Sure." Ginny says.

They hold hands, Ginny's aching hand with Michael's glove-clad hand, and Ginny leads them to Honeydukes. She's had two essays due past Friday, and she's been staying up late every night finishing them up after her detentions.

She deserves a good pint of butterbeer, she thinks.

Ginny sends Michael to get some seats for them both, while she gets the drinks from Madame Rosmerta. She hands over a collection of sickles, half of them Michael's, then grabs the drinks and is heading back when she sees Cho and Marietta sitting in the corner.

Cho's face is bowed while Marietta is holding one of Cho's hands and pushing a glass of butterbeer at her.

Ginny looks away and quickly walks to the booth Michael's saving for them both, but she can still see them from her seat.

Ginny looks away, but she is not fast enough.

"Poor Cho." Michael says, having caught onto where her attention was.

Ginny does not want to talk about this, but she just replies, "Yeah."

It's a strange thing, witnessing someone else's grief and hurt and anger.

She's thought this year that it was better, having people around who was as hurt and angry like she was, not having to be miserable alone, but Cho's grief and Cho's anger and Cho's hurt is not like those of her fellow gryffindors, or any of Cho's fellow ravenclaws.

Ginny wonders if she ought to continue looking away, giving Cho the privacy and space Ginny had always desired when she was hurting, or if she ought to approach her, giving her the comfort Ginny had desired when she was hurting, too.

Ginny doesn't know the pain of losing someone she loves that way, the pain of losing a boyfriend, but she knows the pain of losing Tom, of losing the ground underneath her feet, of losing someone she thought she loved, and perhaps it doesn't matter.

Perhaps all pain is the same, in the end.

Perhaps in that way, Ginny does know of Cho's pain. Perhaps they share the same anger and the same fear too-of Tom, at Tom, at Voldemort-they're all just names in the end. If Ginny talked to her, she would be able to know.

It doesn't seem much like Cho needs her very much, though.

Ginny takes a quick peek at Cho and Marietta again as she and Michael leave the pub, and Cho's cleared up on her crying now. Cho's wiping her eyes, but she's giggling at something Marietta's telling her, and Marietta's hand is still holding Cho's. They've stood up too, and are getting ready to leave just a few feet behind her and Michael.

Maybe Cho has all the comfort she needs for her pain. Ginny didn't have anyone, but Cho has Marietta, and maybe that's enough for her. Maybe what Cho needs from Ginny is the privacy and space to recover like Ginny also desperately wanted.

It's a lot of maybes, but Ginny doesn't look back at them as she and Michael walk into the chilly streets hand in hand. Instead, her hand's aching, and she turns to Michael instead.

"Let's go to Zonko's." She suggests. "I need to get Fred and George back for last week."

Michael snickers and they swing their hands between them as they walk the streets and enter the joke shop. Ginny drops Michael's hand as she spins around to look at paradise-mountains and mountains of prank items.

Fred and George aren't the only ones she needs to get back at.

She is debating the merits of filling Umbridge's office with multiplying wax toads versus a dozen stink pellets when she sees green and silver out of the corner of her eyes.

Astoria is standing on the other side of the aisle, surrounded by two other Slytherins—her sister, and a short, asian girl with dark eyeliner.

Daphne Greengrass looks furious, pointing at a set of dungbombs and talking quickly in a low voice. The other girl has a smirk half-hidden by her green and silver scarf, gesturing sharply with her arms.

Both girls have dark gloves on.

Meanwhile, Astoria isn't paying any attention to both of these girls, just looking at the display in front of her, looking unconcerned if not for the fact that her mouth is set in a tense line.

Ginny looks down at Astoria's hands, clenched by her sides, and suddenly she understands. One of Astoria's hands were wrapped in white bandages, a splotch of red bleeding through.

As though her gaze has been felt, Astoria turns and their eyes meet.

Astoria jerks away her face as though she has been burnt, staring determinedly at the display in front of her, but Ginny hesitates. She turns and sees Michael laughing with Anthony and Marietta, Cho smiling next to her, and Ginny walks over and so does Astoria, meeting in the middle an aisle away from Astoria's sister and their friend. Ginny slots herself next to Astoria close enough for their shoulders to touch.

There are boxes of fireworks in front of them, stretching to the ceiling.

"I recommend the Magic Number Multiplier." Ginny says. "If you try to vanish them, they'll just multiply by three unless a specific vanishing charm is used."

"Got a lot of experience with them, Weasley?" Astoria still doesn't meet her eyes, her beautiful features tense.

Ginny smirks at her, hoping she relaxes a little. "I used to hide them inside my brothers' bed covers and rig them so they'd blow up in their face when they went to bed."

"They must have done something serious to deserve that." Astoria says.

"I still have the scar." Ginny says, tapping at her elbow. "I love mum, but she isn't a healer for a reason."

Astoria is frowning. "Growing up with brothers sound much more dangerous than I was previously assuming."

"It's only Fred and George that are that bad." Ginny says. "Besides, I always got them back eventually. Just like I'm going to get back on them later today."

"Do I want to know what they did to deserve that?" Astoria finally glances in her direction quickly, though she looks away back to the stack of fireworks.

Ginny smiles. "Not if you want to keep your plausible deniability."

"I'd better not ask, then." Astoria says.

"Fair." Ginny says. "What brings you here then? Being seen at a joke shop isn't good for any sort of deniability, even for a Slytherin."

Astoria frowns and glances down at her bandaged hand quickly before looking back to the fireworks. "Good thing you're the only one that's seen me then."

Ginny picks up a box of ink pellets next to the fireworks, pretending to examine it. She glances at Astoria out of the corner of her eyes.

"I thought Umbridge doesn't handle Slytherins' detentions, with the increasing number she has to supervise from the rest of the three houses." Ginny says, not looking away from the list of warnings on the box.

Apparently, it could take up to three weeks and a special removing potion for a portrait to be able to see again after an ink pellet explodes on one.

"Our High Inquisitor doesn't believe in treating houses unequally, it seems." Astoria says, having moved to Ginny's other side-and further away from her sister and housemate-to examine a bottle of itching powder. "How progressive of her, isn't it? The only group whose detentions she doesn't monitor personally are the Inquisitor Squad, as a sign of trust that the High Inquisitor has on their morality."

Huh, Ginny had thought that Umbridge would have been kissing up to Slytherins-the children of Deatheaters and the Ministry higher-ups.

"I would have thought given Umbridge's position in the Ministry, and her not subtle views on what makes proper witches and wizards, she'd be more inclined to take it easy on you guys."

Astoria's face tightens, her lips pursing and a small frown appears on her forehead, before it all smooths away like she never reacted.

"We can't all be Draco Malfoy, heir of the Black line." Astoria says the last bit mockingly, her voice falling into a cadence. Astoria shoots a look towards her sister and her friend, then looks away. She rubs at the bandage on the back of her hand. "I know you Gryffindors have no imagination, but we Slytherins aren't actually a perfect copy of each other, you know."

Ginny glances towards Astoria's sister and their friend.

Ginny grew up a pureblood witch, the seventh child of the seventh child, but the Weasleys have never been in the same society as families like the Malfoys, or even the Longbottoms. If Umbridge has reason to dislike Astoria Greengrass like she dislikes Ginny or Hermione or Harry, Ginny doesn't know it.

Percy might, probably-he's always been good with history and even better at things like social standings and what Percy liked to call networking and Ginny liked to call kissing up to people-but Ginny's not talking to Percy anymore, not after he's called dad crazy for believing that Tom Riddle is gaining power again, not after he's told Ginny that there was nothing to be worried about.

But none of it's particularly important-Umbridge has it out for Astoria too, like she has it out for dozens of other students. Astoria's bleeding because of Umbridge and that's what matters.

Astoria may be a Slytherin, but she's someone who hasn't yet stabbed Ginny in the back, which makes her a better ally compared to at least one of her brothers now. Astoria is no friend of Umbridge's, and an enemy of an enemy could be counted as a friend.

Ginny doesn't think she's willing to trust Astoria quite so much, but she's willing to count her as someone who stands against the same person Ginny does.

"I'm glad for that." Ginny mutters. "Imagine what we'd have to deal with if there were a dozen Malfoy instead of just the one we've got."

Astoria smirks. "I'd have transferred to Beauxbatons on the first day."

"Maybe we all should have. I bet we wouldn't be dealing with all this there." Ginny mutters.

"I hope you know how to speak French, then." Astoria raises an eyebrow at her. "It would be a shame if you failed all your classes."

Ginny does not know how to speak any language other than English.

"I suppose you know how to speak French." Ginny grumbles.

"Naturally." Astoria looks so haughty in that split moment that Ginny kind of wants to punch it off her face, but she resists.

"Well, if I can't flee to Beauxbatons to escape Umbridge, then maybe I could just dungbomb her office to make up for it." Ginny sighes.

"What happened to plausible deniability?" Astoria asks.

Ginny smirks. "What, are you going to snitch on me?"

"If I did?"

"I'll just dungbomb your dormitory, too." Ginny says. "I've already had detention for a week. What's the worst thing that can happen?"

Astoria frowns again. "What did you do to get detention for a week?"

"She said she wouldn't be teaching us any spells to defend ourselves, and said that nothing dangerous was ever going to happen to us that we'd need to know how. So I told her that the first Defense teacher I ever had was a pompous fake and that the last one was a disguised Deatheater, then asked her where in that scale she fell into." Ginny grinned with teeth, still admiring the level of red Umbridge's face had achieved at that question.

"Are you insane?" Astoria looked mildly horrified.

Ginny bared her teeth. Umbridge had outright stated to their Gryffindor-Hufflepuff class that Cedric Diggory's death was an unimportant accident. She'd refused to teach them to defend themselves. She'd called Harry Potter a liar for talking about how Voldemort was back. She'd called Hogwarts, and the world outside Hogwarts safe, saying that as long as they followed the law, no one would hurt them.

Ginny still dreamt of red paint and stone walls. The corpse of a giant basilisk. Her, one blink away, one moment of Tom's control over her away from her death. Green eyes that sometimes bled away into red in her dreams.

Ginny, helpless at the mercy of Tom Riddle's memory. Harry, who'd have bled out on that stone floor if not for the miracle of a flaming bird and a sword. Her brother, who had been just a collapsed hallway and a blubbering Defense teacher away from a rampaging basilisk. Just kids, trapped without a means to defend themselves.

Umbridge told her no one would be in danger as long as they followed the laws.

"No one who grows up with Fred and George can really be defined as sane, I think. You grow up with them long enough, you start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."

Cedric Diggory had been a prefect and Cho still cried over him in Honeydukes. Harry Potter had asked a teacher for help but he had still very nearly died of poison. Ginny had trusted a diary that she thought her mum had picked out for her and she was still paying for that decision.

"Like telling off the High Inquisitor and carving lines into your hand for a week."

Astoria is staring at her gloved hand. Ginny takes her glove off and showed her a very faint scar that had healed, a few hours after the detention with the help of Hermione's murtlap treatment. Maybe that's what Astoria needs-Ginny wonders if Slytherins ever has anyone like Hermione.

"I didn't say anything that wasn't true."

Probably not, Ginny figures.

"You are insane."

Astoria almost sounds awed, except Ginny knows better.

"Insane enough to convince you to dungbomb Umbridge's office with me?" Ginny gives Astoria her best smile.

"I'm not nearly as suicidal as you." Astoria scowls at the box of ink pellets.

That wasn't a no, Ginny thinks. Also, the only reason dungbombing Umbridge would be suicidal would only be if they get caught.

That's not too difficult of a goal.

"I won't get us caught." Ginny promises. "This isn't the first time I've pranked people."

"Just the first time to prank the High Inquisitor, right?" Astoria still looks reluctant, and she's silent, so Ginny nudges her, grabbing at her bandaged hand.

"Don't you want to pay her back for this?" Ginny demands. "You've got to fight back for yourself, or no one else will."

Astoria sighs, but she doesn't pull her hand away from Ginny's, only staring at their momentarily joined hands. "What a time to go stark raving mad." She mutters.

"Does that mean you'll do it?" Ginny grins.

Astoria's ears flush, before she yanks her hand away. "Only if we go with something other than dungbombs. The smell's going to get everywhere in the corridor and I refuse to be seen buying a single pack of them."

Ginny can feel the smile stretching her lips. "Well then, lucky for us, we are standing in the middle of a joke shop. Let me tell my boyfriend to go ahead of me if he doesn't want to get caught up in Fred and George's revenge, and we can get started."

It's going to be glorious, she thinks.

It is glorious, Ginny thinks, as she watches Umbridge flail around.

Umbridge's face is pink, and not the soft pink decorating Umbridge's office that has ruined Ginny's opinion of the colour forever, but the ugly, bordering on red sort of pink, caused by her continuous shouting at the top of her lungs. Her hair is in wild arrays, due to Umbridge continually scratching at her scalp, very unlike the neat state it's usually in.

Ginny is still astonished by how well their plan panned out.

Astoria had somehow talked her into getting Daphne Greengrass and her friend, Tracey Davis-whose dad was a muggle, according to Astoria and disliked Umbridge enough that she wouldn't sell them out but would instead, join in-for help. Daphne Greengrass, as a Slytherin and a reputed good student, would never be noticed or suspected by anyone looking for an accomplice. And Tracey Davis, apparently, was a quite skilled pickpocket who'd threatened to bury Ginny in a shallow grave if the knowledge of her skill ever got revealed to unwanted sources.

Fred and George had set off an elaborate prank outside the Great Hall earlier that Ginny knew they'd been planning the past few days, involving Peeves, the chandelier, a bucket of stink pellets and Mrs Norris. Like Astoria had predicted, as soon as Peeves's first cackle had sounded, everyone had gone rushing off in that direction, even all the portraits outside Umbridge's office.

From then, it was child's play to sneak into Umbridge's office under the cover of Daphne Greengrass's disillusionment charms, and throw ink pellets all over Umbridge's pink walls, and coincidentally, her kitten portraits.

Ginny hadn't snuck out of the house and onto her brothers' brooms to practice chasing all these years for nothing. Ginny's aim was perfect.

And so was Astoria's triumphant look when she found the drawer the blood quills were being kept in. She broke every single one of them in half, then burned them all in Umbridge's fireplace.

Ginny and Astoria stood side by side in front of the fireplace, watching the quills burn to ashes in silence. Umbridge was bound to find more of them eventually, but they were both banking on the fact that she wouldn't be able to find more in time for Astoria's detention tonight, if she would even notice that they were missing by then.

They passed by Daphne Greengrass in the hall on their way out. Greengrass smiled at her sister, nodded to Ginny, and slipped into the office they'd just left, carrying a case that looked remarkably like the one Madam Hooch used to store the quidditch balls outside of practices and games.

Soon enough, Ginny could hear something thumping Umbridge's office walls loudly before Greengrass hurriedly ducked back out of the office and slammed the door, still carrying the same case, and cast a silencing spell at the wall.

Greengrass's face was flushed from the exertion of outrunning a bludger, and the way her eyes sparkled with triumphant showed her greatest resemblance to Astoria.

Ginny grinned at both of them.

"Let's get out of here." Ginny whispered.

Greengrass's expressions went back to her usual blank poker face. "That ought to have been enough time for the distraction to kick in."

And when Ginny rushed back towards the chaos of the Great Hall with the Greengrass sisters by her side, she saw Tracey Davis smirk at their mostly unnoticed arrival, an empty bottle of itching powder in her hand.

It's been minutes since then, and the chaos hasn't diminished even a little, and Umbridge hasn't stopped scratching her head, too distracted to make an attempt at catching her brothers, or wonder about the state of her office, floors up from where she is now.

It's not a prank, it's revenge. It's revenge for all the blood Umbridge has forced them all to spill, all the blood that still hasn't clotted on Astoria's hand, all the blood she would have forced them to spill in the future.

It's vindictive not funny, and Ginny mildly wonders as if she ought to feel guilty, but she looks at Cho's satisfied smirk as she stands with Marietta, her eyes still puffy and red. She looks at Hermione, at Ron and Harry as they stand together, and none of them look disapproving. Hermione looks grimly satisfied, Harry looks exhausted, and Ron's more focused on them both than he is on Umbridge, but there's no pity or sympathy on any of their faces at all.

She then looks at Astoria, at her hand still bleeding because of Umbridge's pettiness and compulsion for superiority, who still looks angry and fierce and determined, and it hits Ginny just now that Astoria looks glorious, her face set with righteous anger and determination and vindictiveness.

Ginny started dating Michael Corner, because he was cute and he liked her and he asked her out. Ginny accepted because she wasn't going to sit around waiting for her childhood crush to magically fall in love with her, and Ginny needed time to know what she liked and what she wanted.

Crush or not, these days Ginny couldn't spend too much time around Harry without getting caught up in Harry's pain and Harry's burden and Harry's anger-not when Ginny was still hurting the same as he was, still trying not to drown in her fear. Michael was fun, nice enough, and he was cute, but not Michael, or even Harry Potter had ever caused her breath to be stolen from her lungs just by looking at them.

When Ginny first catches sight of Astoria's determined expression, her breath stops.

Then the moment passes, and she is just Astoria again, but Ginny keeps the moment stored away in her brain for later, to be taken out when her fears-chicken blood on her hands, red paint on stone walls, green ink on crisp paper-start to drown her again and she needs a reminder of a moment when she feared nothing at all.

Hours later, Ginny is sitting on the Astronomy tower with Astoria, when Astoria gets a note from McGonagall by owl saying her detention with Umbridge has been cancelled due to unforeseen complications.

Ginny grins at her, and her heart feels like it's bursting as she watches Astoria's triumphant expression, eyes lighting up and the brightest smile Ginny has ever seen on Astoria's face.

Astoria is glorious, Ginny thinks, and she would give anything to keep that expression on Astoria's face. Ginny would do anything to have Astoria's smile aimed in her direction again, to feel brave and warm and fear nothing, to not be alone in the dark ever again.

Astoria's smiles are quickly beginning to mean courage for her, Ginny thinks, courage and bravery and triumph. When Astoria smiles, it's beginning to mean a single moment when Ginny isn't scared anymore.

Astoria is angry and hurt, like Ginny is, and they may not have the same hurt but all pain is the same, in the end.

Ginny's been feeling more and more like a Slytherin since Tom, vindictive and dark, but today is the first time Ginny has really been glad for it-the first time Ginny's used what Tom had changed in her to do what's right, to stop Umbridge from hurting someone for even just a moment, to make Astoria smile at her.

Astoria's smiles feel like bravery to Ginny. And Ginny doesn't want to stop feeling brave.

"You know, we still have some prank items left." Ginny says. "I appreciated my brothers' unwitting help earlier, but if I let them off the hook too easily, it will be a little suspicious, don't you think?"

"I'm sure Umbridge will be looking very carefully into the list of suspects as soon as she's less distracted." Astoria agrees. "I'd hate to get on that list."

It is glorious, Ginny thinks, as she watches George fall down on his arse, wrestling with a medium-sized slime monster, and Fred jerk around in complete panic. Ginny is watching the scene from her seat at the Great Hall, along with a third of the Gryffindors who has the period free for studying, and she's laughing so hard she's in the danger of falling off her seat.

She's probably going to pay for that, later when she's the least expecting it or during another of Harry's DA sessions, but Lee's laughing too hard to help either of the twins up, and Fred's ears are starting to turn pointy at this point, so Ginny doesn't particularly care.

The castle is suffocating this year, and she needs to laugh. She needs to laugh or she's going to go mad again, and absolutely nobody needs that.

She doesn't need that.

* * *

AN: ginny being awestruck by a pretty girl's smile may be the most self relatable and the gayest thing i've ever written. ginny, you're so gay. a true bisexual mess. on a related note, so am i.


End file.
